After reading up on Singapore’s Absence Of The Sacred I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from their 2008 full length offering Era Of The Apostate out on Vrykoblast Productions. From what I’d read, Absence Of The Sacred are an old school death thrash outfit, however, what came out of my speakers upon pressing “Play” on my stereo was completely different. So different that I actually had to double check and make sure I was listening to the right album. Even then I wasn’t sure so I checked the band’s MySpace page and it turned out I was listening to the right CD.

Absence Of The Sacred are death thrash… if you consider The Black Dahlia Murder to be death thrash, and if you do, you’re a retard. The music is so different from what I’d read that I started laughing immediately after I heard it. I wasn’t laughing because other music writers are stupid and couldn’t tell death thrash from a cow taking a shit in a field, that’s a given, the reason why I laughed is because this music is so cliché that it’s fucking ridiculous.

Everything on Era Of The Apostate reeks of mainstream melodic death metalcore nonsense from the pseudo-thrash riffs, to the raspy angry teen angsty vocals, to the corny as fuck lyrics to the fruity breakdowns. The only thing that separates Absence Of The Sacred from all the Bullet For My Valentine and The Black Dahlia Murder clones is the fact that Absence Of The Sacred are Asian. That’s it. They play the same riffs with the same structures and the same time signatures and the same breakdowns as a thousand other bands. I literally get 15 promos a week that sound exactly like this.

The most embarrassing thing about this release is they end things off with a cover of Atheist’s "Unholy War". For those of you who know the original, you know it’s a killer track. Absence Of The Sacred fuck it up pretty horribly. It’s supposed to be a melodic and technical track with a high guitar tone and high raspy vocals, on this cover there’s deep growling vocals, the guitar tone is too heavy and the song simply doesn’t flow the way it should. It basically sounds exactly like The Black Dahlia Murder trying to cover an Atheist song, and that’s not a compliment.

I don’t know what the fuck is up with Vrykoblast Productions. They sent me a package containing seven releases. The first CD in this bundle I reviewed was the ultra brutal (and ultra shitty) Divine Pustulence, then there’s the melodic death metalcore mess that is Absence Of The Sacred and I’ve still got five more albums in this pack to review. I shudder at the thought of what horrors await me with the remaining five discs, I can only hope things get better otherwise I’m going to roast these CDs over a bonfire.

Finally, for the record, I really don’t give a shit if you like music like this, if you do, you have shitty taste in music and that’s okay, but if you’re going to review it at least be accurate and don’t be a fucking moron and call this shit death thrash. Next review I find calling this death thrash, I’m hunting the reviewer down and punching him (or her) in the head. Although if it’s a girl I’ll just get my girlfriend to punch her. Actually, I’ll get my girlfriend to hit the guys too, because anyone who likes shit this isn’t going to be able to take a punch anyway.

Written By: Teufel